Ripe for Harvest

164 • R IPE FOR H ARVEST

Key Church Planter Virtues: Leads the team in a group prayer life that wrestles with God by reminding him of his own stated promises and purposes (Deut. 9.25-29; Ps. 74; Jer. 14.20-21; Luke 18.1-8). Guides the team into finding every opportunity for evangelism because of the confidence that the team is working among those whom God has chosen.

IV. Is Our Mission Among the Poor Characterized by Respect and Expectation?

If you want to do something and have no power to do it, it is talauchi (poverty).

~ Nigeria

When one is poor, she has no say in public, she feels inferior. She has no food, so there is famine in her house; no clothing, and no progress in her family. ~ a woman from Uganda. For a poor person everything is terrible - illness, humiliation, shame. We are cripples; we are afraid of everything; we depend on everyone. No one needs us. We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of. ~ a blind woman from Tiraspol, Moldova

~ “Voices of the Poor.” PovertyNet. http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/voices/listen-findings.htm#1

A. Respect, Respect, Respect

I believe in the Aretha Franklin approach to a theology of the poor. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me.”

One of the ways that St. Francis described his relationship with the poor (and others) was through the word Cortesia . “We use the word ‘courtesy’ to mean manners. Originally, it meant the behavior and etiquette expected of one who served at a noble court. . . . For St. Francis . . . cortesia was a way of seeing and acting towards others.

Context Values/Vision Prepare Launch Assemble Nurture Transition Schedule/Charter

~ Lawrence Cunningham. St. Francis of Assisi. San Francisco: Harper and Row. 1981.